Subject: re: naming debates

From: "Ray Fassett" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 12:56:21 -0500 (EST)

"dns naming debates don't belong on the IETF list."

sorry, but the "technologists" are married to the naming debates as much as
they feel comfortable with the hit-and-run approach of having a material
impact upon the DNS market place.  Especially those technologists that like
to throw out quick sound bytes about "market demand" or other economic
variables as if speaking from a position of expertise or proper due
diligence of a for-profit spectrum.  Conservatism based upon an area of
expertise is fine.  Unfortunately, many technologists have failed to live
within their bounds and, where DNS is concerned, have allowed others with
not so technically altruistic motivations adversely affect consumers.  So,
welcome to the wedding.

Those technologists that want a divorce need simply go on record in some
formal way regarding the technical impact the first round TLD expansion has
had upon root server functionality and overall architecture, extrapolate
this as they know how, make their recommendation, and move on.  Is this
really outside the technical scope of the IETF?

Ray
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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 16:58:58 -0500

> Is this really outside the technical scope of the IETF?

No, it's not.  It's just that IETF has discussed this periodically for 
many years.   That discussion has produced no consensus, much heat, 
little light, nothing new to say, and nothing new to be learned 
about DNS operation from such debate during most of that time.
The DNS debate is probably the least productive recurring discussion 
we have.

I don't like the idea of ruling technical subjects out-of-scope for
the IETF list.  However I suspect it would be more productive if instead 
of repeating the same arguments over and over, those of us with strong 
feelings about the subject would put their positions on a web page, and 
whenever the discussion crops up again, simply send in the URLs.   

There are other debates besides DNS naming for which this would also 
be a good idea.

Keith

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From: "Ray Fassett" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 17:53:58 -0500 (EST)

"It's just that IETF has discussed this periodically for
many years."

Understood and valid.  And this will be my last post to the main page on
this subject. What I would like to point out as that the change to the
root, that ICANN has described "as never been before", has now been done.
If there was ever a time for a technologist to apply their expertise for
the benefit of the community on this subject matter, now is it.  For the
IETF not to take this position and perform whatever it is it does by way of
technical due diligence on a matter of this type of gravity is, to this lay
person, a complete neglect of its purpose and responsibilities regardless
of discussions that have taken place prior. Am I wrong?  If not, can
someone please make the recommendation by way of proper IETF protocol and
get it started?

Ray

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